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User blog:GlitterInformer/Doki Doki! Pretty Cure/Glitter Force Doki Doki SDC: Episode 12 (Sub)
Episode 11 (Sub), 9 (Dub) | Table of Contents | Episode 13 (Sub), 10 (Dub) Japanese title: "Mana's Determination! I'll Take on a Disciple!" DD12 cover.png Hello, everybody, and welcome to the first sub-only episode of Doki Doki! Pretty Cure! We’ve had a lot of cut content by now, but this is the first time an entire episode has been cut from Glitter Force Doki Doki. It isn’t the first time in the franchise, though; the first Glitter Force had 8 episodes cut from it. Are you ready for a Japan-only adventure? Of course you are; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Before we start, there’s something I need to say on the subject of Mana. Every pink Pretty Cure has a word or phrase that she says at least once an episode. Mana’s catchphrase is “kyun kyun”, a Japanese onomatopoeia for the tightening of one’s heart. She most often uses it to say that her heart has tightened up when she’s moved by something. Maya never says “kyun kyun” or its English equivalent. Instead, her once-an-episode catchphrase is “doki doki”, which fits more with the title. With that out of the way, let’s do what we set out to do in the first place. The episode starts with a green-haired, male student at Oogai First Middle School gathering his resolve to go talk to Mana. Meanwhile, Mana and her friends are having a conversation before school starts. For some reason, it’s only just now that Mana and Sharuru have realized that Ai is a great ally to have in their fights. Why wasn’t this apparent all the way back in episode 8? Since her birth, Ai has been essential to Pretty Cure’s victory in all of the fights so far except for one. Anyway, Rikka says that having Ai is not enough to complete their mission. Makoto points out that they still haven’t made any progress in finding Princess Ange. Then, the whole class is stunned when the boy from earlier slams open the door. Much to the shock of everyone, the boy bows to Mana so deeply that his arms and legs are touching the floor. He begs Mana to let him become her disciple. I should note here that although the boy looks like he’s barely started puberty, his voice is surprisingly deep. It’s deep enough for a 13 or 14 year old, but the boy doesn’t look like he’s far enough along to not have a higher-pitched voice. The opening theme plays. Then, we find out from Mana that the boy is named Jun Saotome (“sah-oh-toh-meh”), and that he’s from a different class than Mana. Jun once again asks Mana to make him her disciple. Raquel asks what an disciple is and Dabi explains that an disciple is somebody who respects somebody and does everything they tell them to. Rikka tells Makoto that surprisingly, this isn’t the first time that somebody has asked to be Mana’s disciple. A lot of people look up to her. Speaking of popular students, why has everyone stopped crowding around Makoto? Mana may be the student council president, but Makoto’s a national celebrity. Yet here, everyone’s ignoring her and treating her just like any other student. In fact, even though Makoto’s crowds of fans was shown as a major obstacle in episode 10->8, they haven’t been shown since. The show seems to have forgotten that Makoto is famous. Also, quick fun fact: Yashima, the girl who got carsickness in episode 1, has appeared again. Mana has taken her seat to talk to Jun, but she’s okay with it. Back to the story. Mana asks Jun why he wants to become her disciple. Jun says that it all happened yesterday. He was struggling to carry a huge stack of textbooks to the library. Just when he was about to drop the stack from exhaustion, Mana helped him out by taking the stack to the library herself. From this moment, Jun fell in love (maybe platonic, maybe romantic) with Mana and compared her to a prince upon a white horse. Jun tells Mana that he wants to become a guy as strong as Mana and thus wants to be her disciple. Rikka mutters that a white horse has nothing to do with anything and that Mana isn’t a guy. Nonetheless, Mana agrees to be a mentor to Jun, and Rikka anticipates trouble again from Mana’s inability to say no. The title card is shown. Then, we cut to a lunch vendor being haggled by an unruly crowd of hungry students. One of the male students complains about the crowd and says that he’s too late the yakisoba (fried wheat noodle) bread he wanted. Mana, who has come with Jun, notices and offers to buy him some. Unfortunately, the lady is too busy to get to Mana at the moment. Mana thus offers to help out and squeezes through the crowd to get to her. Jun tries to do the same, but he’s pushed out of the crowd and lands on his back. While the lady prepares the meals, Mana takes orders and serves. Eventually, everything is sold out and the male student from earlier is presented with his sandwich. It isn’t until Rikka points it out that Mana realizes that due to serving all of the bread, she has none of her own. Jun admires how selfless Mana is to sacrifice her own lunch for somebody else’s. Then, Mana cracks and begs Rikka to share her lunch with her. Suddenly, there’s a crash. Mana goes to investigate and finds that a girl has tripped down the stares. She and Jun take her to the nurse’s office, where she gets her knee patched up. Then, when another unwell student comes in, the nurse asks Mana to take some papers to the staff room. Mana and Jun do so. While they’re making the delivery, they come across two groups of boys who are having a loud argument. Before things can get physical, Mana intervenes. Jun marvels at Mana’s never-ending duties and goes in once more to help Mana out. We then get a montage of things continuing in a similar manner. Jun helps Mana with after-school cleaning, the student council meeting, being a crossing guard, and giving two old people massages for some reason. Then, Jun comes to Joe’s curio shop with Mana and her friends. She’s pleased to meet Ai again, and Jun is shocked that on top of everything else, Mana is raising a baby. Mana offers to let Jun hold the baby. Jun is scared at first, and that’s the least of his problems. Ai pinches Jun’s cheek and tugs on his hair. Rikka decides to help him out. Using Raquel (who unfortunately says his ridiculous line again), she summons… a baby rattle. Even though we have never seen a baby rattle Cure Lovies before. It just appears right out of nowhere. It’s not magically summoned like the milk bottle and bed Lovies, nor is it one of the Lovies that Joe owns. It’s just there. As Rikka takes Ai and distracts her with the rattle, Jun lies on the couch in exhaustion. Arisu offers him some candy to get his energy back, so Jun gratefully takes a piece. Then, Jun is surprised to notice that Mana is smiling at him. Mana congratulates Jun on her hard work, but Jun says that he didn’t work anywhere near as hard as she did. He says that nonetheless, it was a hard day. Mana agrees, but she thought it was fun too because she loves the happy feelings she gets when people thank her. Jun sees Mana’s confidence and starts to doubt that somebody as bungling as him can ever be as great as Mana. He snaps himself out of it, though, and thinks that if he puts in the hard work, he can become just as helpful as Mana. Suddenly, Joe puts his hand on Jun’s shoulder. He gives him a Cure Lovies that will supposedly protect him and make his wishes come true. Jun is surprised at first, but he’s thankful for the charm. We then cut to the villains’ hideout, where Bel has bandages covering his entire body. Maybe he’ll rethink fighting Pretty Cure directly and instead use Jikochuu to do his bidding. As things are, Ira and Marmo mock Bel for having lost again, even in Beast Mode. Bel points out that they’ve had just as few victories as him. Ira makes the obviously fake excuse that he was fooling around, and Marmo says that she’s been too focused on doing her facial treatment. Bel says that King Jikochuu is getting angry and that he won’t let them off easy for slacking off. This makes Ira determined to fight Pretty Cure even more seriously than before. To prove his point, he takes a bowling ball and tries bowling, getting yet another miss. Before Marmo can laugh at him, Ira takes multiple balls at once and flings them at the pins, knocking them down in multiple goes. Marmo tells him that he cheated, but Ira doesn’t care. He’ll do whatever it takes to defeat Pretty Cure. We get the eyecatches. Then, we cut to the school library. Mana is gathering a bunch of reference books that she plans to read so she can gain the knowledge to better help her peers. Jun tries to help by grabbing some books, but they’re too high for him to reach and Mana has to get them instead. Despite this, Rikka and Makoto admire how well Jun is keeping up with Mana. Dabi, however, notes that Jun seems to be feeling down. Then, we see that Mana is helping a sports team yet again. This time, she’s practicing with the tennis team and impressing everybody with her skills as usual. Jun doubts that he’d ever be able to make as impressive of a serve as Mana did. He at least tries to help somehow by carrying Mana’s bag for her. However, it’s so heavy that he can’t lift it, so Mana carries it by herself. This makes Jun feel even worse. As Mana, Rikka, and Makoto walk home, Jun follows a ways behind them. Arisu gets out of her trademark pink car to meet her friends and then notices that Jun is feeling down. When she joins the group in their walk, she walks beside Jun and talks to him. She asks if he helped Mana again today. He says that he did and Arisu says that that must have been hard work. Jun thinks that he actually wasn’t able to do anything to help Mana, but he doesn’t admit this to Arisu. Then, a nearby little girl’s hat blows away and Mana runs to catch it. Jun tries to help by following her, but he can’t keep up with her. Eventually, just as Mana leaps up and triumphantly catches the hat, Jun trips and falls. Jun laments that because he’s so short, slow, and weak, he’ll never be able to become like Mana. He briefly becomes angry and wishes to become taller and stronger than even Mana. This causes a splotch of darkness to appear in his Psyche. Then, he deflates and tells himself that it isn’t possible, and the darkness recedes. This is Ira’s cue to appear. He extracts Jun’s Psyche. Then, deciding to get serious, he eats it and becomes a Jikochuu. He laughs evilly before realizing that he’s become a ridiculous elephant Jikochuu. Makoto, Rikka, and Arisu fail to be intimidated and instead find that Ira’s elephant form is cute. This gets Ira angry. Mana tells the little girl and her friend to run away. As they do so, Mana, Rikka, Arisu, and Makoto transform into Pretty Cure. When Cure Heart gives her usual catcphrase, Ira gets even angrier and begins the fight. First, Ira tries to hit the girls with his trunk. Cure Rosetta blocks it from hitting the others. Cure Sword tries to kick Ira, but he slams her away. He then curls his trunk around Rosetta and swings her into Cure Diamond. Cure Heart tries kicking Ira from behind, but he hits her into a nearby hill. Diamond notes that Ira is strong, but she still can’t get over how cute he is. Ira gets angry once again. Then, Heart gets up, still raring for a fight. Ira wonders why Heart is still at it, and Heart explains that she has to save Jun. Ira says that he’s just making Jun’s wishes come true. To back him up, Ira summons a projection of Jun’s soul. Jun says that he wants to become stronger, taller, and more reliable. Ira says that by turning him into a Jikochuu, he’s giving Jun exactly what he wants. Heart protests that he wouldn’t want it to happen like this, but Jun counter-protests that he’ll never be able to gain the sort of strength that Mana has. Jun’s anguish powers up Ira, enabling him to shoot water at Pretty Cure. Cure Sword slashes through a blast of water and tries to bring Jun to his senses by telling him that he’ll never become like Mana just by becoming strong. As the physical fight continues, Diamond says that Mana wasn’t born talented but had to work hard to become the person she is today. Ira knocks away both Sword and Diamond, but Cure Rosetta holds her own against the blasts by using Rosetta Wall (though the incantation isn’t shown). Rosetta says that what makes Mana special isn’t her strength, but her kind heart. Heart jumps back into battle. She says that the others are praising her too much because she, too, has had numerous failures and disappointments. In fact, she tells Jun that he’s just like her. Ira is still able to smack Heart into the dirt, though. He says that Jun can’t hear anything that the girls are telling him. Ira jumps into the air and is about to crush Heart with his leg. Then, Jun’s Psyche, which is a part of the Jikochuu’s body, glows blue. Ira loses control over the Jikochuu a bit, thus his blow misses Heart. He tries to stomp on Heart, but he can’t move his foot. The girls wonder what’s wrong with Ira and Sword says that Ira can’t act because Jun’s Psyche is wavering. Oddly, all it takes for Ira to turn Jun’s Psyche black again is to rub it and tell it not to be rebellious. With this, Ira regains full control. He tries stomping on Heart once more, but this time, all four warriors resist by holding up his foot. Heart shouts that she’s touched by how hard Jun has been working, so she’ll never let Ira take his Psyche for himself. She demands that Ira give Jun back, and the four Pretty Cures fling Ira towards a lake. Ira keeps himself from falling into the lake by flapping his bat wings that the elephant Jikochuu has for some reason. As he struggles to keep himself aloft, Sword uses Sparkle Sword to create huge splashes in the water, distracting Ira. Rosetta leaps into the air, so Ira blasts water at her. Rosetta reflects the water back at him by using Rosetta Reflection, causing Ira to get soaked. Diamond then uses Diamond Shower to freeze the entire lake, trapping Ira. Finally, after calling out Ira one last time for exploiting Jun’s Psyche, Heart defeats the Jikochuu using Heart Shoot. As Jun’s purified Psyche flies away, Ira teleports away. Later, Jun wakes up and is shocked to find Mana watching him. He jumps up and asks what he was doing, and Mana says that he was just taking a nap. Mana notices that Jun is thinking about something. She asks what’s wrong, but Jun says that it’s nothing. A few days later, Mana, Rikka, and Makoto are walking around school before it starts. They note that they haven’t seen Jun much lately. Then, Mana notices that the flower bed looks beautiful and wonders if it’s always looked like that. It turns out that it hasn’t; lately, Jun has decided to care for the flowers since he loves gardening. He can’t become as strong as Maya, so he instead decided to make people smile by doing what he’s good at. Jun’s realized that this was what he wanted all along. Jun apologizes to Mana for backing out of being her disciple. Mana isn’t upset, though; she’s amazed at how much Jun was able to do all by himself. Makoto says that he should now be able to get a disciple of his own. Jun wonders about that, but Mana is happy nonetheless because he’s smiling at last. And then… well, remember that mystery villain who appeared at the very end of last episode of the dub? Well, she’s here. The dub even edited the footage of her first appearing by replacing the school garden with a softball field. I’m not sure how Saban did that, but here’s a comparison of the footage shown here with the footage shown in episode 9 of Glitter Force Doki Doki: DD12 01 villain.png|???: "Ohh? So they're Pretty Cure?" DD11 45 added villain 1.png|???: "So, where's this Glitter Force I've heard so much about?" The new villain is excited to have finally found Pretty Cure. Much like in the dub, she’s looking forward to “playing” with them. And with this, episode 12 of Doki Doki! Pretty Cure draws to a close. Overall: I loved this episode. In fact, it’s my favorite episode of Doki Doki! Pretty Cure so far. First of all, we got to see more of Mana’s trademark selflessness that makes her such a unique, refreshing, and entertaining character. But best of all, we got to see Jun. I really empathized with Jun’s desire to become just as selfless and strong as Mana. In fact, it’s that desire that makes him such a wonderful audience surrogate. I don’t know about you, but after watching the first episode of this show, I wanted to become more like Mana, too. And even if you don’t want to become the real-world counterpart of Mana, I bet you’ve had a moment in your life where you’re jealous of somebody you idolize because of how much better they are than you. In fact, everyone has moments where they feel like they’re useless and don’t help anyone at all. But Jun, as well as the audience, learned a lesson today. You can never become exactly like the person you idolize. Instead, you have to apply your desire to help people to do what you do well. You’ll be far more productive, helpful, and happy. I really do feel better about myself now that I’ve watched this episode. Lately, I’ve been worrying that I’m leeching off of society. Right now, I’m not doing much to help society. I feel like a leech; the most productive thing I’m doing right now is my sub/dub comparison of this show, and I have no idea how many people actually read this. But the fact is, doing this sub/dub comparison makes me feel happy and fulfilled, and it might just be making other people feel happy, too. Thanks, Jun, for being a role model who has allowed me to feel better about myself. And thanks, Toei Animation, for bringing this important message to the silver screen in such a wonderful way. It really is a shame that the dub didn’t include this. As I said earlier in the comparison, they didn’t have to include episode 9->7, as it had nothing to do with the plot. It was a good episode, but if you can only put 30 episodes in, you need to pick the best ones to put it. While I do think the best thing Saban could have done was remove episode 9 and fully dub three of the partially cut episodes, I think that replacing episode 9 with this one would have been a better choice. I can only imagine the positive impact this episode would have had on Anglophone viewers. The only complaints I have about this episode are small. Jun’s voice was a bit too low-pitched, and Makoto’s fan base was glaringly absent. Otherwise, this episode was fantastic. I hope to see more great entertainment from Doki Doki! Pretty Cure. Next time: While Arisu/Clara participates in a contest, an inhabitant of the Trump Kingdom/Splendorius makes her move! Category:Blog posts